


The Right Place At The Right Time

by DesireeArmfeldt



Category: Canadian 6 Degrees, Wilby Wonderful (2004)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Canon Queer Character, Canon Queer Relationship, Happy Ending, Homophobia, Hope, Love, M/M, POV Third Person Limited, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-25
Updated: 2013-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-06 00:13:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1100197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesireeArmfeldt/pseuds/DesireeArmfeldt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU in which Duck is the one contemplating suicide and Dan is the one trying to save him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Right Place At The Right Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Luzula](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luzula/gifts), [sageness](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sageness/gifts), [Garonne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Garonne/gifts).



> I started writing this in August, for Play Day at the [C6D Challenge](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/alternate_ds_c6d). Then (surprise surprise) it got too long to finish in time. Then it went on the back burner and I've been tinkering with it on and off ever since. Now it's finally done!
> 
> Thanks to luzula and sage for running the challenge, and to garonne, whose prompt inspired this story.
> 
> (Hey, by the way, there are a billion as-yet-unused AU ideas sitting around at http://alternate-ds-c6d.dreamwidth.org/740.html. Maybe you want to write one of them someday! In your copious spare time.)
> 
> Happy ficmas eve!

_Wilby Wonderful_ read the banner hanging over the bridge.  Dan wondered what that was supposed to mean.  Was someone trying to make a clever play on words?  _What will be wonderful, exactly?_   This morning, it was hard to imagine anything.

As he drove up to the bridge, Dan saw a man standing in the middle of it, with his hands resting on the green iron struts above his head.  He wasn’t doing anything in particular: admiring the scenery, maybe, though it was a weird place for doing that.  The view wasn’t anything special, and there wasn’t a footpath.  Still, there wasn’t much traffic, either, and what there was, was slow.  The guy wasn’t in any real danger of getting run over.

Dan gave a mental shrug as he drove over the bridge.  Not his business.  He had enough on his mind today as it was without worrying about why some islander would take it into his head to—

The man’s head whipped around as Dan passed him, and—yes, Dan did know the guy.  His face heated up thinking about exactly _how_ he knew. . .Duck, that was his name.  Duck McDonald.  Not that Duck and Dan had ever been _introduced_ , exactly.  Dan vaguely knew his name from around town: Duck McDonald, the guy you call to fix your gutters or paint your house. 

What else he knew about Duck was the smell of tobacco and salt and sharp sweat.  Rough-short hair.  Slender, callused, nimble fingers.  Strong body pressing against Dan’s, holding him up, holding him down, holding him together.  He barely knew the guy’s name, but Dan knew how Duck kissed, how he tasted, the way he went absolutely still and silent when he came.

And he knew there was something wrong about the way Duck was standing there on the bridge, frozen still looking over his shoulder like he was a picture Dan had snapped as he passed by.

Dan parked his car half-off the edge of the road, nose-to-tail with Duck’s pickup, and walked back to the middle of the bridge.  He smiled tentatively as he approached.  Duck jerked a nod at him, then turned to look back at the water.

“Hi,” said Dan.

“Hey,” Duck responded, not looking at him.

He had one foot up resting on one of the horizontal bars below the handrail, with his outstretched hands taking some of his weight.  It was the kind of casually masculine pose Dan always admired and could never pull off himself.  Unlike Dan, Duck seemed to be one of those guys who was comfortable in his skin and never had to worry about his knees and elbows and feet and too-long legs.  He was solid and easy. . .Except he wasn’t comfortable or easy right now.  He looked like he ought to be, but Dan could tell he wasn’t.

“How’s it going?” Dan asked.  It was a foolish thing to ask, as if this were just some ordinary day and they were making small talk.  And if he didn’t mean it as small talk, well, he and Duck didn’t know each other well enough to talk in broad daylight about stuff no one talked about.  But he didn’t know what else to say.

Duck just shrugged.  He wasn’t a talky kind of guy to begin with, and now the silence went on until Dan realized that was all the answer he was going to get.

“You here for the view?” Dan tried.

“Hanging banners.”  Duck jerked his head sideways towards the end of the bridge. 

“Looks good,” said Dan.  When that got no response, he tried, “What’s it for?”

Duck didn’t respond right away.  Dan figured Duck was blowing him off again, but as he was casting around for something else to say, Duck said in that soft, clipped voice of his, “Town Days.  Some festival thing.  New.  Carol French or someone thought it up.”

“Sounds like it could be fun,” Dan offered, though he didn’t really mean it.

Duck turned to look at him.  His expression was closed-off, like someone had hung a No Trespassing sign on him.  The look turned into a stare; Dan stared back, awkward and embarrassed but refusing to drop his eyes or back away.  He didn’t know why he was pushing like this.  It wasn’t like him, but in the three days since Val left, he’d been feeling numb and restless and reckless and he wanted. . .some kind of connection, at least.  But more than that, there was something about the way Duck was standing and his shuttered silence that made Dan afraid to leave him there alone.

“Anyway,” said Duck at last.  “I’ll see you later.”

 _In other words, Get Lost._  

But Dan had nothing to lose anymore, which meant he had nothing to be afraid of.

“See you,” he said, and stayed right where he was, leaning against the bridge, looking at Duck, until Duck shoved his hands in the pockets of his overalls, stalked to his pickup with his shoulders hunched, and drove away.

Dan waited until he couldn’t hear the pickup’s engine anymore, then got in his own car and followed Duck in to town.

 

                                    *                                  *                                  *

 

There was a _Wilby Wonderful_ banner hanging outside Town Hall and another strung between the streetlamps in the middle of Main Street, but Duck must have hung those earlier in the day, because he was nowhere to be seen, though his truck was parked outside Iggy’s.  Dan pulled up down the block and went into the coffeeshop.

Duck was standing by the counter, chatting with the woman who owned the place—what was her name?  She hadn’t been in town long, although Dan had the impression she was from Wilby originally, a prodigal daughter returned to re-open the coffeeshop that had been closed for years before Dan and Val moved here.  Sandra, that was her name.  She seemed to be doing all the chatting, actually.  She was wearing a clingy, low-cut blouse, and though Dan couldn’t hear what she was saying to Duck, her smile and her body language made it clear she was flirting with him.  Duck seemed to be paying more attention to the newspaper in his hand than to her.

Bells jingled as Dan let the door swing shut behind him, and everyone in the place turned with small-town reflex to see who’d come in.  Sandra kept smiling but the smile took on a worried tinge.  Sandra’s little teenage daughter looked shocked.  Duck gave Dan a look like he’d just stabbed Duck in the back.  And the three other customers in the place looked quickly away as though Dan had some sort of disease you could catch through eye contact.

Then the woman sitting by the window said in an ostentatious stage whisper, “It’s one of the queers from the Watch.”

Dan froze, like a fugitive in a black and white movie when the police searchlight sweeps over him.  For a moment, he half-expected Buddy French and Stan Lastman to burst through the door, cuff him and haul him away.  The next second, the absurdity of that thought hit him so strongly that he almost laughed.

He was still staring straight at Duck, though, and the look on Duck’s face was not funny in any way.  Duck looked like he was about to be sick. 

Then Duck dropped the newspaper on the counter, and time started running at its natural speed.  As Sandra hissed, “Irene!” Duck strode past Dan and out the door, head down like he was walking through a downpour.  The door banged; the gossiping witch smirked and lifted her coffee to her lips, ignoring Sandra’s uncomfortable half-frown.

“Can I help you?”  Sandra’s daughter called to Dan, obviously trying to sound cheerful or at least like a polite human being.

Dan hesitated, torn between the desire to chase after Duck and the knowledge that if he did, the gossip-lady would instantly tar Duck with the same brush she’d just used on Dan.  Dan had no idea whether it was common knowledge that Duck was one of the Watchmen too, but he wasn’t going to be the one who blew Duck’s cover.

“Uh, coffee,” he stammered, stepping up to the counter.  “Please.”

“Double double?”  Dan couldn’t tell if the kid’s tense, solemn expression was sympathy, condemnation, or just plain old social anxiety over the awkward situation.

To avoid her eyes and save her from making fumbling small talk while he waited for his coffee, Dan glanced down at the newspaper Duck had left behind.  The headline read: _Names to be Published in Watch Scandal._

 _Jesus._   Well, that explained what Duck was so upset about.  If the whole town didn’t know he was a Watchman already, they would in a few days.  Dan’s name would be on that list, too, for all the difference it would make.  Everybody already seemed to know what he was.  Val had seen to that: even if she hadn’t told anyone, people would have drawn the obvious conclusion from the way she’d left, and the timing of it.

He glanced up to find Sandra watching him.  The smile she gave him still looked nervous, but he thought he saw real sympathy in her eyes.

He nodded self-consciously, paid for his coffee and left, letting the door bang shut on whatever comment the nasty customer was undoubtedly making in his wake.

Duck’s pickup was gone.

 

                                    *                                  *                                  *

 

He didn’t normally get much business during the workday, and if today was like the past few, he could expect not to get any customers at all.  But he opened the video shop anyway, because. . .because he was leaving soon anyway, but damned if he’d let these small-town bigots dictate his actions while he was still here, that was why.

He’d just finished his coffee and was starting to pack some of the less-popular movies into shipping boxes, when a cheerful voice said “Ding, ding.”

Sandra was standing just inside the door, holding out a small paper bag.  Her cheer seemed a little forced, but that might have just been because she wasn’t sure of her welcome.

“I’m on my way to lunch, and I thought I’d stop by and. . .You like the chocolate cookies, right?”  He did; he often ordered one when he stopped by for a mid-afternoon coffee break.  She remembered that, just like her daughter apparently knew how he took his coffee.  He supposed that made him one of her regulars.

“It’s on the house,” Sandra added as he took the bag.

“Thanks.”

“Dan, right?” she asked quickly. 

“Yeah.”

“Sandra Anderson.  Been away a while, just trying to make a go of Iggy’s.  Do you remember Iggy’s?”

“No, it was closed when I got here,” he told her, wondering what it was she was trying to work her way around to saying.

“Right.”  Sandra shifted her weight nervously, then pulled herself up and spat it out.  “Listen don’t mind Irene, she’s—she doesn’t know anything about anything.  She really should just keep her hole shut.”

“She’s—not wrong.”  The words almost choked him, but once they were out, it was suddenly easier to breathe.  Like some big rock had rolled off his chest. 

Sandra gave him a sympathetic half-smile.

“Still.  She should mind her own business.”

Dan shrugged.

“Won’t make much difference after the _Sentinel_ publishes the names,” he said.

She shook her head disgustedly.

“Stupid aresholes.  You’d think they’d have something better to do."

“Yeah.”  He smiled a little, although it wasn’t funny, and she gave him the same kind of smile back. 

He wondered how well she knew Duck.  They were both islanders, so they must have grown up together, and they had been chatting earlier.  Maybe he could ask her opinion about how to approach Duck or. . .how to look after him.  Whether he needed looking after.  But, then, maybe Sandra didn’t know Duck all that well.  Her flirtation in the coffeeshop had seemed genuine, which suggested that she didn’t know that Duck was. . .  He couldn’t risk it.

“Well,” she said after a moment of silence.  “I’d better get going.  Just. . .remember, not everyone around here is like Irene, all right?”

“Sure,” he said.   

“You’re not the only freak in town,” Sandra added, and Dan laughed for the first time in days.

 

                                    *                                  *                                  *

 

There was no sign of Duck’s pickup in the parking lot above the Watch.  There was no reason for Duck to be here, but somehow, Dan had kind of been expecting to find him anyway.

He tramped down the path through the woods to the rocky beach.  He hadn’t often come here during the day; he hadn’t had a reason, and he’d sort of felt like it might break the magic spell that made the midnight Watch its own separate, secret world.  Now, by daylight, it seemed so small: a few meters of sparse pine woods and a spit of bare rock lapped by ocean waves.  Ordinary, and empty.

 _They’re going to publish everyone’s name,_ he thought, trying out the idea to see how he felt about it.  _That’ll be it.  Everyone will know.  Nowhere to hide.  Nowhere to be safe._

It was a terrifying thought.  Except. . .except that the worst had already happened, to Dan, at least.  He didn’t like the way people had been treating him like a plague-carrier for the past week, but it wasn’t like he had ever mingled much to begin with.  The thing that had ripped his guts out was Val finding out: the shame of confessing how thoroughly he’d betrayed her, the desolation of admitting that he’d never been the person she thought he was, and then the horror of realizing that _she’d_ never been the person he thought she was, either.

_I hope you rot in hell._

He might well rot in hell, he supposed, but personally, he was far more ashamed of the way he’d treated Val and his marriage vows than of the desires that had driven him to it.  If he were a better man, he would have faced his fears and been honest in the first place.  Now, with the arrests and the _Sentinel_ trumpeting the scandal in black-and-white, he and all the other Watchmen would be forced to be honest at last.

_No more hiding.  No more lying._

The thought was terrifying, but also exhilarating.  Liberating.  Cleansing.  Dan breathed in the sea air as deeply as he could, enjoying the raw burn in his lungs and the chilly spray on his face.

From behind him, faint voices intruded on the moment.  Dan looked over his shoulder to see a couple of _Sentinel_ reporters and a cop lining up on the overlook for some sort of photo-op.  He wondered if they were trying to capture him in the background of the shot—a real, live Queer From The Watch—or edit him out.

He shivered in the wind, which suddenly felt harsh instead of bracing.  It was easy for him to talk about honesty and liberation and courage.  He wasn’t an islander.  These weren’t his people, he had no roots here, and he was leaving in just a few days.  So what did it matter to Dan what Wilby thought of him?

To a born and bred islander like Duck, though, it would mean everything.

 _I hope you rot in hell,_ hissed Val’s furious, tear-clogged voice in his memory.  He tried to imagine what it would be like to see that in the eyes of everyone you’d grown up with, everyone you’d ever known, every day.

A cold knot formed in his stomach as he imagined what Duck had probably been contemplating on that bridge before Dan came along to spook him off.

 

                                    *                                  *                                  *

 

Dan pulled up in front of his own—soon-to-be-former—house, astonished to see Duck’s pickup truck parked there along with a black car he didn’t recognize.  Hurrying inside, he heard a woman’s voice upstairs, raised in a semi-hysterical tirade.

“. . . . two words, two simple words.  They go together two ways; the right way and the wrong way.  You’re sorry—shut up, you’re sorry.  Do things the right way and you won’t have to be sorry.  It’s that easy, just do things the way they’re supposed to be done—”  

Coming up the stairs, Dan nearly ran into Duck, who was standing on the landing.  Carol French, the real-estate lady, was yelling at him from the doorway of what had been Dan and Val’s bedroom last week. 

“Sorry, sorry.”  Dan raised his hands in apology as Duck shied away from him.

“Mr. Jarvis!” gasped Carol.  “You’re not supposed to be here, really, I’ve got an agent coming over with a family to look at the house in half an hour, and it’s better if you leave it to me—”

“Yes, of course, sorry, I didn’t mean—I just needed—” Dan stammered, distracted, not even sure what he was saying.  It didn’t really matter, anyway, because Carol went on talking as if he hadn’t said anything.

“Do you know, is there a problem with the oven?  Because really, these things should have been taken care of in advance.  If there’s a gas leak, that could—”

“I don’t know of anything wrong with the oven—” Dan started to tell her, at the same time as Duck broke in sharply:

“I told you, I’ll take a look at it, I’ll fix it.  You don’t have to worry—”

“Oh, yes, you’ll fix it, just like you _fixed_ the signs,” Carol snapped, storming right up to Duck and backing him into the wall.  “Are you asking Mr. Jarvis to trust you to keep his house from blowing up?”

“Listen, you called me,” said Duck, jamming his fists into the pockets of his overalls.  “You wanted me to touch up the baseboards, I touched them up.  You want me to look at the damn gas line, I can—”

“I _want_ this house to be in top condition so I can show it in half an hour.  And _not_ smell like gas.  I want—”  Carol broke off with a strange, breathy noise that Dan was shocked to recognize, a moment late, as a sob.  The few times he’d met Carol before, she’d seemed very professional, cool and controlled.  He was more embarrassed to see her cry than he would have been to walk in on her in her underwear.

“I just want things to be like they’re supposed to be.  Why doesn’t anyone understand that?” Carol whispered.

“It doesn’t smell that strong,” Dan offered uselessly.

Her head whipped around to look at him, and suddenly she was in motion, talking like a parody of her usual chipper, high-speed self.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Jarvis, you just go. . .somewhere, wherever it is you’re going, I’ll take care of the gas smell, everything will be fine.  Oh, and I need your signature on those transfer papers—if I’d known you were coming I could have brought them, but that’s all right, you can drop by my office later.  If it’s before three, try my office, after three I’ll be getting ready for an open house so try me there.”  She scribbled an address onto a scrap of paper, which she thrust into his hand.  “It’ll be fine.  Don’t you worry about a thing.  It’ll be just fine.”

She disappeared down the stairs like a skinny, semi-hysterical whirlwind.  The front door banged in her wake.

Duck slammed his workboot into the apparently-newly-painted baseboard.  It left a black smear.

“Sorry,” he said, with an apologetic grimace at Dan.  “Your woodwork.”

“Only until someone buys it,” said Dan, trying a bit of a smile.

Duck gave a soft snort. 

“Good luck with that.”

“I hear she’s good at her job.  But she’s kind of. . .well, she takes some getting used to, I guess?”

“Fucking mainlander.”  Duck said it quietly, but the bitterness of his tone shocked Dan.

“I’m a mainlander,” he said, then winced at how that sounded.  Either defensive or fishing for compliments, and he didn’t know which was worse.

“Yeah, you are, aren’t you?”  Duck’s tone was flat; his face gave no clue what he was thinking.  “You heading back there?”

“Yeah.”

“Smart.”

Duck made a move towards the stairs, but Dan was in his way and fumbled out, “So, um. . .did you want to take a look at the stove?  I’d really appreciate it,” he added hastily as Duck stopped.  “It does kind of smell like gas in here, doesn’t it?”

“Probably just the pilot light,” said Duck, but he headed for the kitchen with Dan tagging along behind.

While Duck poked his head behind the oven, Dan opened some windows to clear out the smell, and then leaned awkwardly against the wall to watch Duck work.  Not that there was much to see, just the back of Duck’s baggy overalls and the soles of his workboots.  He wondered what Duck would do if Dan touched him, put a hand on his back, maybe.  Nothing sexual, just friendly.

But they weren’t friends.

“My wife,” he offered.  “She left me.”

Duck, who was now peering inside the oven, gave a grunt that could have meant sympathy or interrogation or. . .just about anything, really.

“You know, because of. . .”

“Yeah.”  Duck scooted back to sit on his heels.

“So we’re selling our house and. . .well, it doesn’t seem like there’s much to stay for.”

“What’d you come for?  In the first place?”

“To Wilby?” asked Dan, startled both by the fact that Duck had asked a question, and by the question itself.  “Um, you know.  We wanted a change of scenery.  A fresh start.”

“A second chance?”  Duck was looking up at him now, but when Dan met his eyes, Duck looked away.

“I suppose so.”

“Came to the wrong place, then.  Guess you figured that out.”

Dan didn’t think he could really blame Wilby for not saving his marriage, but he didn’t want to start an argument.  He opened his mouth to say something noncommittal, but what he found himself saying was, “I don’t know what I am.” 

Duck flashed him an ugly smile as he got to his feet.

“Hey, stick around, people here will be happy to tell you.”  He banged the oven door shut.  “Pilot light blew out.  Like I said.  Should be fine now.”

“She told me to rot in hell,” said Dan as Duck headed for the stairs.

Duck turned back to look at him.  For a moment, his eyes were warm and gentle, and Dan almost thought Duck would reach over and touch him.  Then the No Trespassing look took over Duck’s face again.

“Guess I’m luckier than you.  No one cares if I rot in hell or not.”

And he was gone before Dan could think of anything to say to that.

The smell of gas was definitely dissipating thanks to the breeze from the windows, but it wasn’t completely gone yet.  Dan ran his hand over the cold burners and wondered.

 

                                    *                                  *                                  *

 

The Wildwood Motel, where Dan was staying while he tried to figure out where to go when he went, sported a _Wilby Wonderful_ banner that hadn’t been there when Dan left that morning.  But there was no pickup truck in sight.

Dan stared up at it for a long while, thinking about the hands that had painted it and the capable body that had climbed a ladder to hang it there. 

He wondered whether Duck really had gotten the words backwards or whether Carol had goofed up the instructions.  He wondered why Duck hadn’t thought to double-check about the strange phrasing.  Or if maybe Duck made it a policy not to save customers from shooting themselves in the foot.  Possibly just the unpleasant ones.

Or maybe Duck had just thought it looked better that way.

He wondered whether Duck would tell him, if he asked.

He wondered where Duck was right then, and what he was doing.

He wondered if he had just imagined the disappointment behind Duck’s blank face when Dan had said he was going to leave Wilby.

He thought about Duck’s kisses, and his smile that used to occasionally flash like the sun breaking through cloud cover.

He wondered if there was anything he could say or do to put that smile back on Duck’s face now.

He wondered where he’d move to when he left, and whether life would be much different there.

He wondered why Carol French had picked an idiotic slogan like _Wonderful Wilby_ in the first place.

 

                                    *                                  *                                  *

 

Dan found Buddy French sitting in his police car around the corner from Iggy’s.  When he knocked on the window, Buddy jumped and hit his head on the roof.  Dan didn’t remember him being so high-strung the few times they’d interacted before; he thought of Buddy as a pretty mellow, approachable kind of guy.  He wasn’t looking so approachable right that moment, but he did roll down his window, so Dan plowed ahead and asked for a couple of minutes of his time.

Buddy got out of the car and leaned against it, his eyes flicking regularly up and down the street like he was staking it out or expecting someone to jump out and shoot him.  Both scenarios seemed extremely unlikely to Dan.  He wondered if it was the aftermath of the Watch raid that had Buddy so on edge.  Or maybe it was being cornered by one of the Town Queers in the middle of the street at dinner time.

“What can I do for you?” asked Buddy, kindly enough for all his nervous mannerisms.

“I, uh. . .I was wondering.  This thing with the _Sentinel_ printing the—the names.”

Buddy raised his eyebrows and waited for him to get to the point.

“I just wondered if it’s really necessary.”

“Necessary?  No, probably not.  But I guess the _Sentinel_ thinks it’s news.”

“Right.”  Dan nodded.  “But I thought you might. . .”  He fumbled for words, not actually sure what good Buddy might be able to do.  He didn’t work for the _Sentinel_ , after all.  But Dan didn’t know anyone on the newspaper, and it wasn’t like they’d listen to him, anyway.  And Buddy had always struck Dan as a good guy. 

“You have influence.  I mean, everyone knows you, they respect you,” Dan said.  Buddy raised his eyebrows again, which made Dan feel like an idiot.  Buddy probably thought Dan was trying to butter him up.  “I just wondered if you might be able to put in a word with someone.  Ask them to reconsider about printing the names.”

“Don’t you think it’s a little late for that?” Buddy asked.

“I think it might make a difference for. . .some people,” Dan suggested.  “Putting it in the newspaper just seems so. . .confrontational.  It makes it so black and white.”

Buddy snorted. 

“So to speak.”  But he didn’t sound like he disagreed.  That was a hopeful sign, at least.

“In a place like this,” Dan offered tentatively.  “Where everyone knows each other and has to do business together. . .it’s hard when people are forced to take sides like that.  Seems like it’d be better to live and let live.”

“Live and let live?  Oh, we don’t do that around here,” said a woman’s sarcastic voice.  Both Dan and Buddy jumped and turned hastily to find Sandra walking up to them.

“Sandra, uh, hi—” Buddy stammered, more rattled than the situation seemed to account for.  They’d just been talking.  Unless Buddy really was afraid to be seen talking with a known Watchman.

“Hey Buddy.  Dan.”  Sandra tossed them each a smile, then exchanged a nervous glance with Buddy that. . .oh.  Maybe Buddy’s twitchiness wasn’t about being seeing talking to _Dan_ ; maybe what he was afraid of was being caught waiting for _Sandra._  

 _It takes a cheater to know one,_ Dan thought bitterly.  Maybe that was why Sandra had been so friendly, earlier. _Maybe she’s the welcome committee some kind of step-out-on-your-wife society.  Regular Thursday night meetings with coffee and doughnuts._   But no, that was unkind.  He knew as well as anyone what might drive a person to cheat—or to screw someone else’s husband.  He was the last person who should be throwing stones.

And by the same logic, maybe Buddy French ought to have a little sympathy with the idea of keeping people’s sex lives out of the front-page news.

“We were just talking about the _Sentinel_ publishing those names,” Dan told Sandra, keeping tabs on Buddy out of the corner of his eye.

“Don’t even tell me about it.  Makes me sick.”  She flicked a glance up at Dan’s face, then looked back at Buddy.  “Poor bastards.”

“Yes, well.”  Buddy licked his lips as he looked across the road, between Sandra and Dan.  “I don’t know why the paper’s so set on publishing the names.  Anything for a story, I guess.”

“Someone ought to go down there and tell them to mind their own business,” said Sandra.  “They’re a newspaper, not a bunch of. . .gossiping old hens.”

“They’re not going to kill a story just because someone walks in and complains,” said Buddy.

“Well, they certainly won’t kill it if no one complains,” Sandra shot back.  “And hey, didn’t your ancestors own this island?”

“Uh, listen, Dan,” Buddy stammered.  “It’s been good chatting with you, but I have to—things, there are things I have to take care of, so—look, I’ll catch you later, all right?” 

He ducked into his car without waiting for an answer, which was fine, because at this point, Dan was almost as embarrassed as Buddy seemed.  Sandra, who looked like she was working up a pretty good head of steam, paused to flash Dan a look that might have been meant to be encouraging but mostly just looked peeved.  Then she climbed into the passenger seat and Buddy drove off, leaving Dan with nothing to do but get back in his own car.

He was definitely starting to like Sandra.

He hoped she’d make some kind of impression on Buddy.  She obviously had a better chance than Dan did, but then, how much could she really care about the newspaper thing, one way or the other?  

Still, Buddy had at least listened to Dan.  It was a start, anyway.  He just wasn’t sure it would be enough.  But what else could he do?

 

                                    *                                  *                                  *

 

Dan drove over the river bridge for the third time in two hours.  There was no point in driving aimlessly around Wilby all night, he knew that.  It was a small island, but plenty large enough for one person to lose another on, especially if that person actively didn’t want to be found.  But he couldn’t go back to the Wildwood and just watch TV or something while Duck. . .did whatever he was going to do.

He wondered whether he ought to have told Buddy French about his fears, maybe asked him to help look for Duck, to make sure he was okay.  But he didn’t _know_ there was anything to worry about, and if he called the cops on Duck and it turned out he was wrong. . .well, Duck certainly wouldn’t thank him for it.

 _I should just go home,_ he told himself.  _Duck can take care of himself._

It wasn’t like he didn’t have other things he ought to be worrying about.  Like travel arrangements, and the sale of the house, and—

“Shit.”  He smacked his palm against the steering wheel, startling himself with the force of the blow. 

He’d forgotten all about those stupid papers Carol French wanted him to sign.  Well, it was too late now.  He checked his watch, but couldn’t see it in the dark, which was just proof that it was way too late to try to catch Carol at her office or at that open house she’d told him to come to. 

He could always call her, of course; as far as he could tell, the woman lived with her cell glued to her side.  But it would be rude to intrude on her at this hour.  And if she hadn’t needed the papers before now, she surely couldn’t need them before morning.  He’d just call her after breakfast.  Nothing to worry about.

On the other hand. . .Carol was Buddy’s wife.  If Dan _did_ drop by the Frenches’ to sign those papers for Carol, he’d most likely run into Buddy there.  And if he ran into Buddy, it would be natural to stop and chat with him—a friendly, unofficial, off the record chat.  Dan wasn’t at all confident of his ability to walk the line of discretion that would warn Buddy that maybe Duck needed an eye kept on him without tipping Buddy off about why Dan thought so, and maybe outing Duck if Buddy didn’t already know Duck was queer.  But he had to give it a try.

If he’d been riding a horse, he would have spurred it into a gallop.  As it was, he leaned on the gas, accelerating as much as he dared on the dark, winding road. 

 

                                    *                                  *                                  *

 

Dan’s heart sank when he saw there were no lights on in the big yellow house, but he parked and walked up to the door anyway.  No one answered when he rang the bell—not a surprise.  He peeked in the front window and saw that the living room was not just deserted, it was totally empty: no furniture, nothing.  That was when he realized that he’d come to the wrong house, like an idiot.  This was _The French House_ , the one the islanders all used as a landmark, the one where Buddy French’s mother had lived until she died a few months back.  The one where Carol French had told him she was having an open house this afternoon.  Buddy and Carol didn’t live here.  In fact, now that Dan thought about it, he wasn’t sure where they did live.

Not that it would be hard to get their address; there was the phone book, after all, and anyway, Dan was probably the only person in town who didn’t know off the top of his head where Buddy French’s house was.  He could drive over to the Loyalist and someone there would tell him.

Shaking his head at his stupid mistake, he headed back to the street, turned left, realized he’d actually parked his car to the right of the house, and was about to turn around when he spotted Duck’s pickup.

Most of the other houses nearby showed lights.  Duck was probably in one of them: dinner with friends or an emergency plumbing job or something.  If so, he certainly didn’t need Dan barging in on him like a fool. If not. . .

Dan walked back up onto the French lawn and around to the side of the house, where he found a window open.  Remembering the smell of gas in his own house and Carol frantically shoving sashes up, Dan glanced around to make sure there was no one to see him, then hauled himself up over the windowsill.  The window was stuck partway open, which made it a snug fit to get his shoulders through, and then he couldn’t quite get the leverage to get his legs up, so he was left balancing precariously half-in and half-out.  But at least he could see now.

This room was as empty as the other, except for a single chair in the middle of the floor, which Duck was on, doing something to a ceiling beam.  Dan tried again to wrestle his legs through the window.  Duck jerked around at the noise; the sudden motion kicked the chair out from under him.  It collapsed with a loud crack, and Duck sprawled on his ass on the floor.

It was so much like something that would normally happen to Dan that he couldn’t help grinning.  Then he caught sight of the noose dangling from the ceiling beam.

Duck stared back at him defiantly.

“Um,” said Dan after what seemed like a very long pause.  “Hi.”

Duck just kept looking at him.

“You mind if I. . .”  Dan tried to gesture at the window and himself ridiculously wedged partway into the room, but both his hands were supporting his weight, so the attempt nearly caused him to slither backwards out the window.

Duck snorted.

“You know you’re a real pain in the ass?” he said as he got to his feet and came over to haul Dan inside.  Dan cracked one knee on the windowsill and ended up sprawling against Duck, who helped him stagger to his feet.  Well, it was better than falling on his face.

As soon as Dan was upright, Duck dropped his hands and stepped back, as if he didn’t have the right to touch him.  Which maybe he didn’t, outside the bounds of the Watch.

“Don’t,” Dan told him softly.

Duck shook his head with a little unamused smile.

“Any particular reason I shouldn’t?”

Dan searched frantically for some magic words, but his mind was blank.  All he could come up with was, “It’d spoil Carol French’s house sale?”

“Yeah, well, that was part of the point.”

“You’re. . .you’d do something like that to spite Carol?  Why do you hate her so much?”

Duck shrugged. 

“I don’t, really.  I guess she was just. . .the last straw.  Her and her town days and her Wonderful fucking Wilby.”  He rubbed his hand over his mouth wearily.

“You mean _Wilby Wonderful_ ,” Dan offered, but Duck responded to the tentative joke with a bitter snort.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought when I was a kid.  Everything will be wonderful when. . .I don’t know.  When I’m older.  Bigger.  Smarter.  Win the fucking lottery.  Whatever.  But it’s still just the same old Wilby.”  Duck’s flat tone got tighter, higher.  “So where the hell does she get off with her Wilby—Wonderful—whichever fucking way she wants it?” 

“Maybe she likes it here,” Dan suggested helplessly, lacing his fingers together to keep his hands from fidgeting.

“She likes her idea of the quaint little tourist island she wants to turn us into.”  Apparently when Duck got angry, he didn’t get loud, just intense.  “Wonderful Wilby, the town that time forgot.  Where they sell off all the coastland for beachfront hotels and golf courses and shopping malls with one hand while they stone the queers on the other.  Of course, you don’t have to care about any of that if you’re a French.”

“Buddy French seems. . .okay,” Dan said.  “I talked to him this afternoon.  I thought he might be able to do something to stop the _Sentinel_ from printing the names.”

“Buddy?  Sure, maybe he could, but why would he bother?  He’s got what he wants.  Clean up the Watch, keep it pristine for people like him.”

“Well. . .you know him better than I do, but he seemed like he was at least thinking about it.  I don’t think he—”

The slam of a car door out on the street made them both jump.  Then they heard the click of hard-heeled shoes on the porch steps.

“Shit!” Dan hissed.  Duck stared back at him for a wide-eyed, frozen moment.

“That woman never stops.  Probably coming to freshen the air or something.”

“What do we do?” Dan asked, but Duck was already hauling him out of the room by one wrist.  He jerked open a door under the hallway stairs and shoved Dan into some kind of cupboard, pulling the door shut behind them just as the front door opened.

There was barely space for both of them under the stairs; they were wrapped around each other in the dusty blackness.  Dan put a finger under his nose to keep from sneezing and accidentally elbowed Duck in the ribs.  He couldn’t speak and Duck couldn’t see him, so he apologized by giving Duck’s leg an awkward pat.  Duck shifted a little, ending up with his chest pressed against Dan’s back, almost like an embrace.

Dan heard Carol walking around in the front room, muttering.  Scrape of wood as she moved the knocked-over chair.  The muttering took on a frantic tone as her footsteps passed right in front of their hiding place, went into some other room, came back.  Dan stifled a giggle.  Against his neck, a puff of breath: maybe Duck wanted to laugh at the absurdity too?

Another car-door slammed outside, Carol yelped, and something—the chair again?—went _thump._   Then her footsteps rushing to the door and a bunch of voices moving into the hallway, past the stairs, back into the living room.  Carol must be having a house-showing, Dan figured.  He could hear her talking about moulding and light and the new paint job and something-or-other leftover from work being done.  A man’s voice and another woman’s, commenting and asking questions, talking over each other.

“She changed her mind three times about the color of the damn paint,” Duck murmured in his ear. 

“You know,” Dan whispered back.  “If you still feel like messing up her house sale, all we’d have to do is make a little noise.  And then when someone comes to see what’s going bump in the night, they’d discover a couple of, uh. . .”

“Faggots, engaging in unnatural acts?” Duck suggested.  He sounded like he might be smiling.

“Yeah, that.  Color of the paint wouldn’t matter then.”

Duck actually chuckled.

Abruptly, the cupboard door opened, and a teenage girl stared down at them.  Just like on that night at the Watch when the police’s lights had descended through the woods, Dan’s first instinct was to freeze in panic; his second was to resign himself to disaster. 

But this wasn’t the Watch, and Dan didn’t have anything to lose anymore.  What he did have was something to protect.

So he smiled up at the girl and raised his finger to his lips.  Her glance flicked away in the direction of the adult voices, then she looked back at Dan appraisingly.  A smile spread over her sulky face.  She gave them a nod and an honest-to-God actual wink, and gently shut the door. 

Her footsteps retreated into the other room.  The adults’ chatter went on uninterrupted.

Duck exhaled and sagged a little against Dan.

“Thank God for teenage rebellion, huh?” Dan whispered.

Against his back, Dan felt Duck’s chest vibrate with another quiet chuckle.  His breath was warm on Dan’s cheek. 

Impulsively, Dan twisted his head around as far as he could.  It wasn’t quite enough to bring his lips to Duck’s, but Duck leaned forward a little to bridge the gap.  Their mouths met, just a soft touch of lips.

“Why’d you do that?” Duck murmured.  But he didn’t pull away.

“Sh,” Dan told him.  “Not here.”

“Not here.  Right.  Sure.”  Now Duck did move, but only to rest his chin on Dan’s shoulder.  His arms snaked tentatively around Dan’s waist; Dan covered Duck’s hands with his own and pressed back against him, welcoming the hug.

The voices and footsteps were suddenly loud as Carol and her guests trooped up the stairs over their heads.  They tromped around on the second floor for a while, talking about God-knows-what.  Dan’s nose kept itching and his feet fell asleep; he tried to shift his weight, but all that did was squash him up against Duck in an awfully rude way.  Duck snickered.

“Sorry,” Dan whispered.

“Shut _up_ , will you?”  Duck didn’t actually sound angry; more like he was trying to keep from cracking up.  He put his hand over Dan’s mouth, which caused Dan to squeak in surprise.  Duck yanked his hand back with a thump—must have banged his elbow.

“Ow.  Fuck.  Sorry.”

“Shut up,” Dan told him, grinning.

Eventually Carol and her visitors made their way back to the front hall and then outside.  A couple of car-door slams, engines starting. . .and finally the house was quiet.

“Think it’s safe to come out now.”  Duck extricated himself from the hidey-hole. 

Dan managed to stop himself from asking whether the play on words was intentional, since it almost certainly hadn’t been.  He scrambled to his feet, making a pointless attempt to dust himself off. 

Duck watched him with an actual amused smile.

“What?  Do I have cobwebs in my hair or something?”

“Only a little bit.”  Duck reached up to brush off the back of Dan’s head.  Dan wondered if he should return the favor, but Duck didn’t look particularly dirty.

“Then what’s so funny?” he asked.

“Just remembering me and Jack Stevens in the supply closet, Junior year.”

The image of that, combined with wondering what his own life might have been like if he’d met a Jack Stevens in high school. . .or a Duck. . .made Dan’s cheeks heat.  The blush—or his flusteredness—must have been obvious, because Duck’s expression went from amused to embarrassed to shut-down.

“Sorry, I shouldn’t’ve. . .” Duck muttered, his shoulders hunching as he took a step back.

“No, no, it’s fine, I just. . .I’m not. . .used to. . .”  Dan took a breath and tried to pull himself together.  “I was just wondering what it was like.”

“Pretty lousy, actually,” said Duck with a small, lopsided smile.  “We had no fucking clue, and I got a mop handle in the eye, and. . .”  He shrugged, and the smile got a little bigger.  “Best thing that happened to me all year.”

Dan wondered what had happened to Jack Stevens.  He hoped he’d at least appreciated Duck’s smile, which was currently giving Dan’s stomach butterflies.

“Um.  So.  Maybe we should. . .”  Dan gestured at the front door.  “I mean, in case they come back, or. . .”

“Yeah.”  Duck’s smile faded and he folded his arms across his chest again.  Dan cursed mentally.

“So. . . ?”  He took a tentative step towards the door, but Duck stayed put.  “Coming?”

“You planning to babysit me?” Duck asked bitterly.

“I. . .”  Dan didn’t know what to say.  He’d overstepped his limits, yes.  He and Duck barely knew each other, and following an acquaintance all over town all day was not your normal socially-accepted behavior.  In fact, when you added in the fact that they’d had sex together, it looked an awful lot like stalking.  But the rope was still swinging from the beam behind Duck, and Dan just couldn’t feel he’d done the wrong thing.

Duck half-turned to follow Dan’s gaze; his head tilted back as though he needed to get a good look, although really, he didn’t need to look at all. 

“Why?” he asked.  His voice was soft, but still had a belligerent edge to it.  “What the hell business is it of yours, anyway?”

“I couldn’t just. . .I was there, I saw you, at the bridge, and. . .I couldn’t just do nothing.”

“Sure you could.  It’s easy.”

“I didn’t want to.  I didn’t want you to. . .”  Not for the first time in his life, Dan wished he was any good with words.  Or people.  “I like you.”

“Barely know me,” Duck muttered.

“I’d like to,” Dan replied.

“Missed your chance, didn’t you?  Your bags are packed.  How soon are you going to be gone?”  Duck turned back around and stared him straight in the eyes, probably expecting him to flinch, but Dan held the eye contact, took a breath, and said,

“What if I’m not leaving?”

Duck’s frown was both angry and confused.

“Why the hell wouldn’t you?”

“Why didn’t you ever leave?” Dan asked.  “If you hate it so much?”

Duck made a sound that wasn’t quite laughter.

“Too much of an islander.”  He shook his head.  “Even if I did leave. . .be like running from myself, you know?

Dan nodded.

“Thought about doing it at the Watch,” said Duck.  “You know, rocks in the pockets.  Not to make a point.  Just because it was my place.”

“Why didn’t you?”

Duck shrugged.

“I don’t know.  Loved it too much, I guess.”

“I’ve been running from myself all my life,” said Dan.  He had no idea why it was so easy to say now, when he’d never been able to talk about any of this in his entire life, not even to the men at the Watch.  It made him feel like laughing or dancing or something, except that Duck was still defensively curled in on himself and Dan desperately wanted to fix that.  “But you know?  I’m sick of it.”

Duck raised skeptical eyebrows.

“Besides,” Dan went on.  “There’s a lot here worth staying for.”

He held out his hand and made himself leave it there until Duck finally reached over and took it.  Dan brought Duck’s hand up against his own cheek.  That felt nice, comforting.  And as he watched, some of the tension melted out of Duck’s stance and his eyes came up to meet Dan’s.

“You think?”

“Yeah.  I do.”

Duck didn’t reply, but he cradled the back of Dan’s head with his free hand and pulled him down into a kiss.  A real one this time, slow and tender. 

Dan remembered this about Duck: unlike the few other men Dan had experimented with at the Watch, Duck kissed often, and he did it slowly and gently, like he had all the time in the world.

Even though it wasn’t the first time, they were both a little breathless when they pulled apart.  And Duck was smiling back at Dan for real.

“Would you—I mean, I’d like it if you’d come back to my place tonight.  If you want?” Dan offered.

“What, to sleep on your floor?  You want to crash in an empty house, we could just stay here.”

“No, I mean, to the Wildwood, I have a room. . .”

“You’re a classy date, Jarvis, you know that?”  Duck shook his head, but at least he was still smiling.  “I guess it’s a step up from the Watch, anyway.” 

“It has a bed.  A double,” Dan insisted.  If he couldn’t say it without blushing, at least he managed to sound firm and decisive.  “And in the morning, you could help me haul my stuff back to the house and—and unpack.”

Duck nodded slowly. 

“We could do that.  Assuming Carol French hasn’t sold your place already.”

 _Oh God, I hope not._   Dan hadn’t considered that possibility.  But it wasn’t very likely, and it was a worry for the morning in any case.  So he just smiled and said,

“Well, if she has, maybe I’ll ask her how much she wants for this place.”

That won a full-on grin from Duck.

“More than yours would go for, tell you that for free.”

“Hope you learn to like the motel room, then,” Dan said as he tugged Duck toward the door.  Duck followed him for a couple of steps and then balked, dropping Dan’s hand.  Dan panicked for a second—had that only-sort-of-joke been too much, too fast, out of bounds?  But no, Duck was just sensibly doubling back to grab the end of the rope that still dangled from the beam.

“Better not leave that.”  Duck gave the rope a sharp tug; the noose shot up and over the beam and the rope thumped to the floor in a heap.  And Duck suddenly burst out laughing.

“What?” asked Dan again, vaguely worried that maybe Duck was having some sort of breakdown.

“They didn’t see it.”  Duck’s laughter garbled his words a little.  “They tramped all through here looking at the fucking crown mouldings, and nobody noticed there was a. . .”

Dan started laughing, too, imagining Carol French and her clients chatting about the location and the woodwork and who knew what else, with a noose hanging over their heads right in the middle of the room. 

“Or maybe she convinced them it was part of the décor,” he suggested. 

“The latest thing, all the rage in Ottowa.”

“Just wait, in a week or two you’ll be getting all kinds of orders from people who want—”

“Funeral home decoration,” Duck gasped out before pretty much losing it completely.  He grabbed Dan’s arm to steady himself, like he was in danger of literally falling down laughing.

“You know,” said Dan when they’d finally pulled themselves together.  “One thing you can say for Carol French.  Either she’s the only person in town who doesn’t know I was at the Watch, or she doesn’t care.  I mean, she’s selling my house and she never. . .well, she just treated me like I was. . .just _there_.”

“You have a point.”  Duck nodded thoughtfully.  “She’s doesn’t care what list my name’s on, as long as she gets her Toasted Eggshell mouldings and a banner that says Wonderful Fucking Wilby.”

“Well, it’s something.  And Sandra, at Iggy’s. . .she wants to be friends, I think.  She told me we’re not the only freaks in town.”

“Well, that’s for damn sure.”

“I just mean. . .even if they do publish the list. . .it might not be so bad.”

“Yeah,” said Duck as he coiled the rope around his arm.  “Maybe next year we’ll have a parade.”


End file.
